BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbian pro-Western President Boris Tadic said Wednesday he is resigning, paving the way for an early presidential election where he will face a strong challenge from a nationalist candidate. Serbia’s parliament speaker is expected to call the vote for May 6, the same day when parliamentary and local elections are already scheduled. In the presidential vote, Tadic will be challenged by nationalist candidate Tomislav Nikolic who has received tacit support from Russia. Several other candidates are also expected to run, but without real chances of winning. Tadic, who has worked hard to bring Serbia closer to the...

PARIS — The president of Serbia, Boris Tadic, lashed out at organized crime and its corrosive effect on the Balkans in a speech Wednesday, pressing for an international investigation of human organ trafficking in Kosovo and broad protection for witnesses. He made his comments in Strasbourg before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which on Tuesday adopted an investigative report that has roiled the leadership in Kosovo. It alleged that Serb prisoners were killed at the end of the Kosovo conflict in 1999 to harvest organs for transplant for an organized crime group, Drenica, with ties to the...

Serbian President Boris Tadic Photo of Zejtinlik, the Serbian Military Cemetery in Thessaloniki (Salonica) Greece, taken by "Avala". Wikipedia Commons Serbian President opens business forum in GreeceTHESSALONIKI -- At the end of his three-day official visit to Greece, Serbian President Boris Tadic today opened a business forum. Tadic visits the Serb military cemetery in Thessaloniki (Tanjug) June 3, 2010 The event gathered leading businesspeople from Greece and Serbia in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. The Serbian market has huge development potential and the prosperity of the Western Balkans can hardly be imagined without Serbia having a crucial role in it,...

An Open Letter to Boris Tadic, President of the Republic of Serbia: October 18, 2009 Dear President Tadic, My name is Aleksandra, and I'm an American. I was born and raised in America and live in the United States. I am of Serbian descent, the daughter of parents who came to this country after World War Two and made America their permanent home. I wish I could have attended the reception given in your honor in Cleveland, Ohio on September 20th, 2009. Several friends did attend, and everyone was so pleased to have had the opportunity to spend time with...

NOTE: A video/audio webcast of President Tadic's presentation is also available via "Real Player" at http://www.un.org/ga/64/generaldebate/RS.shtmlGENERAL ASSEMBLY SIXTY-FOURTH SESSION STATEMENT by H.E.MR. BORIS TADIC PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA New York, 25 September 2009 "President of the General Assembly, Mr. Secretary-General, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, The United Nations is the only universal institution that unites us as a global community of independent states. At the very heart of this indispensable Organization stands the General Assembly—the only place in the world where the sovereign voices of all countries are given an equal, legitimate say in the future course of mankind....

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Serbian President Boris Tadic on Thursday agreed to establish a strategic partnership between the two countries. During their talks held Thursday afternoon, the two heads of state exchanged views on building and developing a strategic partnership and reached a broad consensus. Chinese President Hu Jintao (L) welcomes visiting Serbian President Boris Tadic in Beijing, capital of China, on Aug. 20, 2009.(Xinhua/Ma Zhancheng)Hu highly valued Chinese relations with Serbia, saying the two peoples have traditional friendship and no matter what happened in the world, the relations between the two countries have developed healthily. He put forward...

Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero has reaffirmed that Spain will not recognise Kosovo as independent, newspapers in Kosovo and Serbia reported on March 10 2009. "Spain's position on the unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence is known - it is non-recognition," Zapatero was quoted as saying by Kosovo daily Koha Ditore. "We have maintained this position and we will continue to do so in the future." Addressing a joint news conference on March 9, Serbian president Tadic said that his country would never recognise Kosovo, which unilaterally declared itself as independent in February 2008. "Serbia will not give up on...

Serbia's contest against secession sets a new Balkan standard A year ago today, a great disturbance with global implications was felt throughout the international system - the unilateral declaration of independence by the ethnic-Albanian authorities of Serbia's southern province of Kosovo. This blatant attempt at secession is in direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999), the U.N. Charter, and the Helsinki Final Act. As a result, a vast majority of U.N. member states, including many with multiethnic populations, have refused to recognize Kosovo's independence. At the time, we stated clearly that Serbia would never recognize Kosovo's unilateral...

excerpt - BELGRADE: Serbia's government collapsed on Saturday and early elections loomed as pro-Western President Boris Tadic and nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica faced off over Kosovo and EU integration. Kostunica said his cabinet would meet on Monday to formally dissolve parliament and urged Tadic to call new elections for May 11, the same date as existing municipal polls. "The government of Serbia has no united policy any more on an important issue related to the future of the country, Kosovo as a part of Serbia," Kostunica told reporters in Belgrade. "Such a government could not function any more. This...

"Unfortunately neither political representatives of the Kosovo Albanians nor the international community realized what a chance this was for us to start changing relations between Serbs and (ethnic) Albanians," Tadic said. "If the presence of a Serbian president at a funeral in Pristina is unacceptable, the begging question is whether we are acceptable to one another and whether we shall ever be so in the future," he said.

Dialog and respect for rights of others are fundamental for progress in KosovoDiocese of Raska and Prizren assesses visit of President Tadic as successfulERP KIM Info ServiceGracanica, February 16, 2005The visit of Serbian president Boris Tadic to Kosovo was an event of the first order for the Serbian community in this region, and consequently also for the Serbian Orthodox Church. By coming here President Tadic not only showed that the Serbian state is concerned for its ethnically discriminated citizens in Kosovo, but also confirmed the existence of sincere readiness and opportunity to legitimately defend the interests of the state and those who need protection...

BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 30 - A senior American diplomat expressed frustration on Thursday that Serbia had yet to turn over a leading war crimes suspect months after the election of a new president who had promised "full cooperation" with the international tribunal at The Hague. Marc Grossman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said the Serbian government had made no progress toward arresting the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, Gen. Ratko Mladic. General Mladic was indicted in 1995 on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from his actions during the 1992-95 conflict...

SUBOTICA, Serbia, Sept. 15 - When the Setets family set off this morning to take their 13-year-old daughter to school, they got a shock. As they left their small, two-room house on the outskirts of Subotica, in northern Serbia, they found a 15-inch kitchen knife imbedded in their front door. Alongside it, someone had sprayed the Serbian word for "death" in red. Further to the right was "Drop dead, Hungarians." Such ethnically motivated attacks by Serbs against people like the Setets (pronounced sheh-tets), members of this country's 300,000-strong Hungarian minority, have become rife, souring relations between Serbia and neighboring Hungary....

Serbia's First Democratic President Takes Office Katarina Kratovac/Associated Press BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Serbia's first pro-democracy president since World War II took office Sunday, vowing to bring stability to the Balkan republic and push it closer to the European Union and NATO. Boris Tadic, 46, leader of opposition Democratic Party, was elected in a June 27 runoff, defeating a hard-line nationalist ally of former President Slobodan Milosevic. Although the office is mostly ceremonial, Tadic's election was seen as a signal of Serbs' desires to more closely align with the EU and NATO and to move away from the nationalist isolation...